The thin ridge of houses along the top of the moor I always saw as a scar along a smooth body. That blackened body. It was so obvious what they had done. The exploitation. The pit head gone, perhaps, and them tiny men back and buried in them tiny miners cottages. Sometimes I felt sadlyContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Blasted’”
Tag Archives: Bewick
100-Word Fiction: ‘The 1970s’
Four candles. A whisp of sulphur, a spark and her gleaming eyes. Happy birthday to you. Paul, come on, sit, you’ll have your cake soon. Victoria was still singing, hugging the back of the dining chair, her cheeks red and glasses wonky. After three. One, two, three. Dawn puffed out her cheeks, blew hard andContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The 1970s’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘If the World Was a Little Different’
At first it happened slowly, blistering the skyline and the dusty roadside only occasionally. People turned to look, crying out. But soon, more and more little outbursts came, a ceaseless bombardment, and the city became quickly transformed. The past was forgotten. There were little explosions of colour all across Homs, cherry blossom firing spring intoContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘If the World Was a Little Different’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Way I See It’
Oh but the rains I remember, alternating with the regular insistence of windscreen wipers: downpour, drizzle, downpour, drizzle, downpour, drizzle. They seem so long ago. Now, the way I see it, the world is brighter. Plants bud sooner, the birds always sing. There are children playing in the cul-de-sacs and everyone, at any time, canContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Way I See It’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Like’
Like at night, talking at the table, and glancing outside to see the snow falling. Like forgetting and awakening; again the clear magic. Like the blackthorn’s spindle branches and grass turned bronze and the endless white sky. And the snow that came like confetti first, and clung to the birches and the oaks, and settledContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Like’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Sky at Night’
Across the sky, flitting light. Not stars as such, but gilded shards. They continue to fall, piercing horizon upon horizon. Some say they will ignite briefly over the deepest darkest parts of the ocean, to be seen only by the whales and the dolphins as they break upwards from the blue. Some say the shardsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Sky at Night’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘They Come’
From Siberia and the cold continent they arrive, to make home, however temporary. To eat. To survive. The Great Northern Diver. The Arctic Skua. Waxwing and Redwing. Snow Bunting. Short-eared Owl. Guillemot. Brent Geese in their tens of thousands, huddled in the cold mud of the grey estuaries, arcing over forlorn skies. Oystercatchers from Norway,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘They Come’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Approaching the 10th Parallel’
Field medics report, come in? come in? [crackles] We are hearing you. What medicines do you require? Over. Command suitable retaliation. Use aggressive force. Come in? Use aggressive medicine? Over. There has been an interstitial interruption between spaces of matter. Check. Over. There are holes blown. We cannot hear, clear… Receiving. Medic coordinates? Over. 10thContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Approaching the 10th Parallel’”
100-Word Fiction: Gone, but
Johnny had grown to love that old dog. After the yapping stopped, when it was no longer such a keen and overbearing puppy, when its occasional mistimed bark seemed endearing, some kind of grudging trust had been formed between them. Then, the dog went missing. Rumours were that another snarling hound chased it straight outContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: Gone, but”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Ones, Noughts, Else’
But if a human being is ones and noughts, a sequenced code, and if one digit were to become transposed, to throw the scheme off kilter, then what? Then all is possible. It is a depthless abyss, not sunk into experience but spreading. Bodies and minds transformed, and those new bodies and minds transforming actions,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Ones, Noughts, Else’”
MW Bewick 